ENTERING THE OZARKS Back story

Note: THE WAR IN ARKANSAS is a fictional command simulation series. The following is a  "alternate history" account that sets the stage for the fictional ENTERING THE OZARKS and THE OZARK CAMPAIGN command simulations.

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In the spring and early summer of 1864, the Army of the Arkansas and the Department of the Eastern Frontier campaigned through Hot Springs, Montgomery, Clark, Hampstead, Washita, and Calhoun Counties. There were numerous skirmishes and minor engagements, as well as major engagements at Tulip Creek (May 10^th), White Fox Tavern (June 2^nd) and Crane (July 3^rd and 4^th). By July 5^th, the two armies had taken horrendous losses and were mere shadows of the forces that had entered the spring and early summer campaigns. They broke off the campaigning, with the Army of the Arkansas returning to Little Rock and the Department of the Eastern Frontier slowly working its way back to its original headquarters at Fort Smith.

The Confederate 4^th and 5^th Division had been lightly engaged at Crooked Creek on May 27th, but were held at headquarters at the start of the summer campaign. They were transferred for duties in northwest Arkansas and were not at the Battle of Crane, nor were they part of the Department’s movement back to Fort Smith. Under Major General Francis Haggerty, the two divisions moved up through Fayetteville as far as Bentonville, feinting a threat to the Missouri border. This resulted in the Union 7^th and 8^th Divisions, (also engaged at Crooked Creek and then detached from their army before the Battle of Crane), to be ordered north from Helena to provide support for any potential fighting in Southern Missouri. The two divisions, temporarily under Brigadier General Morris Dupont, had moved as far north as Gainesville (Arkansas) when word came that Haggerty’s men were returning southward in the direction of Little Rock.

At the beginning of September, the Department of the Eastern Frontier was in camp at Fort Smith, with the exception of the 4^th and 5^th Divisions which  had stopped and encamped in Huntsville. The Army of the Arkansas was preparing to re-organize in Little Rock, with its 7^th and 8^th Divisions still somewhat distant in Greene County to the northeast. Grand strategies developed in Washington and Richmond, however, conspired to put the two armies into motion again in the fall of 1864.

The war was dragging on without any indication of progress and there was a growing movement to seek a political solution. With an election coming in November, President Lincoln was seeking a symbolic demonstration that there was progress in restoring the Union. His cabinet was discussing a political strategy of declaring new Union states in occupied areas where there was any indication of Union sympathy, as had been done with West Virginia the previous year. In the east, discussions revolved around a joint military and political strategy to create a Union state in Eastern Tennessee. As Washington looked to do the same west of the Mississippi, Major General James Elliot’s Army of the Arkansas would soon receive orders to assist Washington’s political agenda, while defending against Confederate attempts to thwart it.

With the southern border of Missouri presumed secure, Washington was considering the creation of a small state in the Ozark Plateau in northern Arkansas. There had been few slaves in the area before the war and although many of the people of the Ozarks had sympathies with the South, there were also many with Union loyalties and Washington believed that the region's interests were more likely tied to the north.  Elliot’s 7^th and 8^th Divisions would be moved westward from Gainesville into the Ozarks to secure salt peter works that were manufacturing gun powder for the south and secure the area for the arrival of the rest of the Army of the Arkansas.

The Confederacy had surmised Washington’s intentions in northern Arkansas and the Department of the Eastern Frontier sent its 4^th and 5^th Divisions east from Huntsville towards Searcy County. After sending its cavalry division ahead of it, the rest of the Department moved eastward along the river to Clarksville in September, feinting towards Little Rock, but preparing to move northward with the intent of securing the Ozarks and then moving into Missouri in a bid to destabilize Lincoln’s election campaign and enlarge the territory under the Confederacy.  A separate cavalry force had already moved into parts of southern Missouri and been joined by guerrilla forces there. The Department of the Eastern Frontier was to secure the Ozarks and then to move support of guerilla forces that were moving into Missouri. The army expected spend their Christmas encamped in St. Louis or Jefferson City. 

In late September, the Army of the Arkansas left a few batteries and a small garrison in Little Rock. It also sent its cavalry ahead and then began marching north into White County and then across the White River  and north again to Elizabeth and Jacksonport. On September 30^th, Federal general Morris Dupont was in Franklin with two divisions of infantry and the Army of the Arkansas’ cavalry division. He was preparing to enter Izard County the next day.   Confederate General Francis Haggerty was in Borland to the west with a force of similar size ready to move east into Searcy County.  After a few months of rest following the Battle of Crane, the Army of the Arkansas and Department of the Eastern Frontier appeared poised for a show down in the eastern Ozarks, led by the provision corps headed by Maj. Gen. Haggerty and Brig. Gen. Dupont.

ENTERING THE OZARKS will be a command simulation that pits Haggerty against Dupont during the period from 1st October 1864 until the main bodies of the Department of the Eastern Frontier and Army of the Arkansas arrive. The simulation will take place in a restricted campaign theater in the center of the eventual OZARKS CAMPAIGN theater.